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The Grudge

The fifth version of this particular story - and the first to be shot in English, though it retains its Japanese setting - is an unnecessary remake by Takashi Shimizu of his own cult horror and adds little to the genre or the franchise. Essentially a haunted-house story, it begins with student social worker Sarah Michelle Gellar making a house call and encountering some seriously spooky goings-on - the house is home to a demon and anyone who enters its walls is cursed and therefore fated to meet a horrible end. Losing some of the original's exposition, this chiller has installed many superfluous tricks of the horror movie trade instead, apparently designed to make the film more accessible to a Western audience. Accessibility isn't the problem, however, over-familiarity is.

Plot Summary

Horror thriller remake by director Takashi Shimizu of his own 2003 Japanese haunted-house chiller with a twist, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. American student social worker Karen finds herself at the centre of an inexplicable vortex of evil - a curse incarnate - which infests an otherwise peaceful suburban Japanese home.